Brutus and Cassius, in participating in the brutal assassination of Ju

Dear Mo2men,

I'm happy to respond.

Fact #1: a prepositional phrase, by itself, NEVER can be the subject of a sentence. NEVER.

Fact #2: in this practice SC problem, the subject of (B), the OA, is an infinitive

Fact #3: when any infinitive has a subject, the subject of the infinitive follows the proposition "for." Thus, the structure "for A to do X" is understood primarily as an infinitive structure. We could say that the "for A" prepositional phrase is part of the infinitive, or we could say that it is modifying the infinitive. Either way, the main structure here is the infinitive, and the propositional phrase is merely an ancillary role.

Does all this make sense?
Mike
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Argh!! Another tough Question. Lol.

My 2 Cents:

In A and E, the antecedent of 'their' could be either people or B and C. Ambiguity.

In D:

With possibly noble motives, Brutus’ and Cassius’ participation --> It should be B and C & not B's and C's participation.


Boils (or simmers) down to Options B and C.

(B) For Brutus and Cassius to participate in the brutal assassination of Julius Caesar, however noble their motives might have been, was beyond what the Roman people were willing to accept

(C) By participating in the brutal assassination of Julius Caesar, Brutus and Cassius, although their motives might have been noble, did something beyond what was acceptable to the Roman people

I would prefer B over C since the intended meaning is that participating in the assassination was something which the people would not accept. However, Option C states that participating in the assassination, Br and Ca did something else too - and that something was not acceptable to people.

B conveys it correctly

isn't the description 'however noble their motives might have been' which is intended to describe Brutus and Cassius to far from them to be correct?

Dear mdacosta,

I'm happy to respond.

I would draw the following distinction: the pronoun "their" certainly refers to "Brutus and Cassius," but in the pronoun-antecedent relationship, there's no requirement of proximity, as long as the intended antecedent is unambiguous, as it is here.

The pronoun refers to "Brutus and Cassius" but the entire clause beginning with the word "however" is a verb-modifying clause and it modifies the action of the verb "participated." Thus, this verb-modifying clause appopriately comes immediately after the verb and its predicate.

My friend, do you understand how the word "however" is being used here? You may find this helpful:
The Word “However” on the GMAT

Does all this make sense?
Mike
_________________

Dear Mike,

I quote the following after reading your article:

You mentioned in the article that there are two kinds of phrases that can act as the subject of a sentence: infinitive phrases and gerund phrases. But the OA is not one of those kinds. However, I continued reading the following

"The hardest part of these is recognizing where this phrase and all its nested structure end and where the main verb of the sentence begins. As always, the GMAT loves to put one structure inside another to concoct gigantic complex sentences."

I could not how the structure of that question in light of the 2 kinds of phrases?

In the same time the OA has prepositional phrase as subject, but I read in some places that prepositional phrase can't be a subject. There is a lot of debate. Some people reject the idea of prep phrase as subject and others see the function limited to space or time.


What do you think. I hope you can help with this confusion.

Thanks

Isn't (B) changing the meaning of the original sentence?

Original sentence implies - by participating in the assassination, they did something that was not acceptable to the Roman people.

(B) implies - participation itself is not acceptable.

Could some experts clarify this?

Dear manhasnoname,

I'm happy to respond. As you may know, I am the author of this question.

I think you are taking a too-literalistic interpretation of an English idiom. In the idiom used in (A), it is understand that the "something" that Brutus and Cassius did was the participation itself. It is idiomatically understood as an intensifier, not as a separate action.

For example,
When Actor X appeared in a silly commercial for Product Q, he did something that eliminated any respect I had for him.
In this idiom, it's understood that we are not talking about a second action. We are not talking about "appearing in the commercial" and also some other, unspecified action. Instead, this is a type of intensification, creating emphasis on the single action and its consequences. The "something" was no other than "appearing in the commercial": we are merely intensifying our focus on this action. He did this one thing, and doing this one thing had these consequences.

This is a relatively casual, colloquial idiom, so it is not a likely one to appear in a correct answer on the GMAT. A slightly more formal way to convey this would be as follows:
Actor X appeared in a silly commercial for Product Q: in doing so, he eliminated any respect I had for him.

Does this make sense?
Mike
_________________

Hi Mike,

I have gone through the OE before writing this to you.
Option C, as explained is grammatically correct but far from ideal.
I chose C and unfortunately it was a wrong answer choice.

Could you please inform how often or why should such a question be tested on GMAT in which option is grammatically correct and intended meaning is conveyed, still it is wrong as it is not ideal.

Thanks.

Dear SAHILJPR,

I'm happy to respond.

My friend, students naively think the GMAT SC is only a test of grammar. In fact, grammar and logic and rhetoric are all tested--on a well written sentence, these three strands come together coherently to produce an unambiguous meaning. Focusing on grammar for the GMAT SC and ignoring logic and rhetoric is like focusing on integer properties for the Quant and ignoring Geometry and Algebra. On harder questions, the GMAT loves to create incorrect answers that are 100% grammatically correct but rhetorically awful: such answers are traps for students who focus only on grammar. In this sentence, (C) was such a trap.

Grammar can be explained for the most part with rules, and logic has some clear rules also. Rhetoric is the hardest part of language for a non-native speaker to appreciate: it's less a matter of rules and more a matter of intuition, the "feel" of the language. Is the sentence concise? Is it focused? Is it powerful and direct? Is the central idea of the sentence at the front & center grammatically? Do all parts of the sentence work together and support each other? Those are some of the questions that rhetoric addresses. The very best way for a non-native speaker to develop a sense of rhetoric is to develop a habit of reading. See:
How to Improve Your GMAT Verbal Score

Does all this make sense?
Mike
_________________

Official Explanation:

Choice (A) is a wordy and indirect version of this information. The structure “did something that was …” is a very indirect and convoluted structure. Technically, this is all grammatically correct, but it is far from the best way to convey this information.

Choice (B) employs a completely correct use of the word. This is elegant and direct, a promising choice.

Choice (C) also uses the “did something that was” structure. Again, 100% grammatically correct, but far from ideal.

Choice (D) has the awkward phrase “with possibly noble motives.” This changes the meaning. When we say “their motives might have been noble,” essentially we are saying that we don’t know the motives, but we respect the possibility that their motives were noble. When we talk about “possibly noble motives,” this implies that we know the motives and are in a quandary about whether they are noble! That’s a very different meaning. Also, the change from “were willing” to “willingness,” makes the sentence that much more indirect. This is incorrect.

Choice (E) has a pronoun mistake: the pronoun “this” cannot refer to an action. This is also wordy and indirect. This is incorrect.

The only possible answer is (B).

KarishmaB highly confused b/w B & C. Pls help

I would have chosen (C) without a doubt, so I can't help you here.

In (B), I would expect a perfect infinitive since it is in the past.

For B and C to have participated in .. was beyond ...

Also 'were willing to accept' just doesn't sound right to me. It makes me think that they refused to accept that B and C could have done it - not that it was not morally acceptable to them.

KarishmaB mikemcgarry pls explain all reasons to reject A? And whats wrong with prep phrase being the subject

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